


A Latte Love

by sihaya13



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-03 00:23:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16315526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sihaya13/pseuds/sihaya13
Summary: Albus needs coffee to get through his gruelling days of healer training. It's only an added bonus that the coffee is served by a very cute Scorpius Malfoy.For the Trope of Aces Challenge by Lady Ausra @ HPFT





	1. Chapter One

He pushed open the door to the café, inhaling deeply as the smell of coffee surrounded him. Three weeks into his second year of healer training and Albus had finally discovered the seductive glories of caffeine. First year had been hard, but it had only been assignments and exams which had stolen his sleep. With second year came his first placement, and the exams and assignments hadn’t stopped with the added responsibility. 

The café opened at seven in the morning, and that was when he arrived. He’d been up since five, slumming it on some questionable instant coffee as he wrote up case notes for the patients he would encounter later that day. He wove his way through the variety of unmatched tables and chairs toward the counter, preparing himself to have a totally normal social interaction with the unreasonably cute barista. It was really quite unfair that he had to perform such a miraculous feat before drinking his coffee.

Luckily he had some time to adjust as the helpless man in front of him in the line dithered over his order. Albus wasn’t sure if the man was similarly afflicted at the sight of the floppy blond hair, sparkling blue eyes, and rudely well defined cheekbones, or just a general mess of a human, but he was grateful for the opportunity to surreptitiously stare at the beautiful twink that was Scorpius Malfoy.

‘Hi Albus, the usual?’ he asked as the probable general mess of a human wandered off to wait for the latte he had eventually decided to order.

‘Yeah, please, thank you,’ Albus managed as he handed over the money. He flashed what he hoped was a smile as he wandered off to the other end of the counter to wait for his latte containing four glorious shots of real coffee.

Getting coffee was the highlight of his day. Everything before and after passed in a tiring blur of overworked suffering, and none of said overworked suffering contained cute twinks wearing short sleeved shirts which showed off their cute arms and floral tattoos. After collecting his coffee, he couldn’t resist one last look back as he walked toward the door. Upon accidentally making direct eye contact with Scorpius, Albus did an awkward little wave with the hand that held his coffee as he desperately used the other hand to try and pull at the door handle before remembering that the door, in fact, pushed outwards, and yeeted his way out the café as fast as humanly possible.

 _Fuck I am a hot gay mess._ Literally and figurately, considering the coffee he’d spilled down his arm as he was waving.

He drank his coffee as he walked aimlessly down the street, unwilling to risk splinching or spilling it while apparating. It was a good excuse to recover from his dumb gay brain and to appreciate the autumn leaves crunching beneath his feet. Of course, his brain remained gay and dumb and fixated on floral tattoos. 

In fact, it was still being gay and dumb and fixated on floral tattoos when he reluctantly apparated himself to St. Mungos to begin another day of exhaustion.

‘Yo, Albus,’ he heard shouted at him as he walked from the apparating room toward the student common room. 

‘Hey, Lorcan, how’s it going?’

‘Well I’m fine, but more importantly tell me all about your gay morning.’

Albus strongly regretted ever telling Lorcan about his increasingly problematic crush on Scorpius Malfoy. Having recently emerged from a bad breakup, Lorcan was avoiding romantic entanglements himself but remained thirsty for some solid vicarious gay drama.

‘I swear he gets cuter every day. Or I get gayer. Maybe both. Anyway he caught me staring at him today and I tried to wave at him with my coffee.’

‘Oh, buddy.’ Lorcan gave him a mockingly sympathetic pat on the shoulder.

‘I know,’ Albus whined. ‘What am I like this?’

‘You know what would fix it?’ Lorcan asked.

‘You’ve told me everyday for the past several weeks, so quite possibly.’

‘Well?’

‘I am not asking out Scorpius Malfoy.’

‘Well then you’re just going to have to keep suffering as you pine away into nothing.’

‘Thanks for the support Lorcan.’

‘Anytime, my dude. Anyway we’re gonna be late if you don’t move your pining gay arse.’

Albus rolled his eyes, resigned to his fate. No kissing cute boys, only endless piles of patient files.


	2. Chapter Two

Scorpius didn’t hate his job. It obviously wasn’t his dream in life to make coffee, but he had a good manager and he got enough work to live away from home. Most importantly, he was free.  
His father was not at all pleased by this turn of events. He did his best to hide it, but Scorpius knew how much he had longed for his son to be successful in spite in him. Success was measured in terms of a good, respectable, ministry or private contracting job. Money. Stability. Respectability. Scorpius had always been more interested in freedom. 

He knew he should think about a career. But really, in this economy? He wasn’t sure there was a point. May as well bide his time in a job that treated him fairly and paid him enough to spend his time off honing his craft. 

All Scorpius truly wanted in life was to tattoo beautiful, moving watercolour tattoos on other people’s bodies. Ideally, he’d also like not starting work at 6.30 in the morning either. If it could be at all avoided.

That morning he had rolled out of bed at 6.22, thrown on the first shirt and pants he had grabbed from his worn but not dirty enough to go in the wash but too dirty to hang back in the wardrobe pile, spent the remaining six spare minutes doing what he could with his hair in front of the mirror, and apparated straight to the café. He was opening that morning, so he was first to arrive, unlocking the doors of _A Latte Love_ with the correct pattern of brick-tapping-with-wand each trusted employee was given. Even though none had been made yet, the smell of coffee lingered, and he did his level best to osmose it through his pores as he waved his wand, pulling chairs down from the tops of tables and sending salt and pepper shakers flying across the room. 

As soon as he had finished the most basic bitch of opening tasks he desperately made his own ass a coffee. He felt like a cliché drinking lattes at _A Latte Love_ , but he did love lattes. Triple shot. Caffeine straight to the soul. 

There was one additional problem with lattes, however. There was this one customer, who rudely insisted on being ridiculously cute, who had ruined lattes for Scorpius. This rude, short, stocky, messy haired, unreasonably cute boy kept ordering them. And he’d made lattes gay. Scorpius couldn’t drink a latte without pining like a fifteen year old. Considering making lattes was a solid fifty per cent of his job, it was really fucking inconvenient to be a gay _pining_ mess every single time he made one. 

Honestly, fuck Albus Potter and his soulful green eyes. And his messy hair. And his charming smile. And his fucking lattes. 

Just as Scorpius was bemoaning his existence as a Useless Gay the first of his workmates stumbled in bleary eyed through the door.

‘Hey Steph, what’s up?’

‘Well, not the sun.’

‘I’d pity you but I was here first. Come drink your caffeine.’

‘Thanks dude.’

With only five minutes until they were officially open, Steph downed her coffee in under a minute.

‘Thank god I have tomorrow off. I need a sleep in. No alarm. No waking up before the sun. Just sleeping as long as my body will let me.’

Scorpius sighed. ‘I’m working the next three days still. Kill me.’

‘I would but I really don’t have the energy. Besides, you love working here every week day,’ Steph wiggled her eyebrows in Scorpius’ general direction.

Scorpius rolled his eyes. He and Steph had gotten to know each other well enough that there was no hiding his pathetic pining crush from her. She caught on as soon as he had casually emptied a bunch of coffee grinds onto his shoe as he stood staring helplessly at the unreasonably cute Albus Potter.

‘Ok fair. I do. I am pathetic.’

‘You are. You are the most pathetic. You should just ask him out.’

‘Dear god no. He’s Albus Potter. He’s a customer. We went to school together. It’s all far too, you know, weird.’

‘It’s a pity you didn’t develop a crush on him while you were in school.’

‘I know. I would have been far too useless to do anything about it though. And we didn’t really hang in the same circles, you know? I’m not even sure he was out in school.’

‘Well he’s out now. And you’ve been out since birth. Just, bring some more rainbows into the world already before I have to watch more of this.’

Just as the words came out of her mouth, the first customer of the day trickled in. Scorpius had made half a dozen coffees before Albus walked in. It was always the same time every morning, like clockwork. If Scorpius wasn’t too distracted being helplessly gay he was sure he would have been more disturbed by such an unsettling level of organisation.

He struggled to pay attention to the indecisive man in front of Albus deliberating over his order. Steph had to elbow him in the side as she rushed past, for which Scorpius was eternally grateful.  
And then it was Albus’ turn. He stepped up to the counter in all his glory, a cute little smile on his face.

‘Hi Albus, the usual?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, please, thank you,’ he replied.

He still had that damned cute smile on his face as he wandered off to wait for his order. Scorpius moved to start his coffee, keeping his eyes studiously focused on what he was doing. One glance at those green eyes and he’d be swimming in a latte. 

He managed to make it through the order and hand it over to Albus, no latte down his front, no coffee on his shoes. He couldn’t help but stare as Albus turned to walk out the café. Suffice to say, the man wore well-fitted pants and Scorpius found it entirely distracting. 

When Albus turned around and caught him staring, Scorpius’ heart skipped at least four beats, sure that he had been caught out. But then Albus gave the cutest little wave, and spilled coffee down his arm as he turned to leave the store. Scorpius couldn’t help but laugh at how adorable the little wave had been, and had to resist the urge to run after Albus to make sure he was ok. Check if he, perchance, needed a new coffee so that Scorpius could spend more time looking at his face. 

_Dear god_ , thought Scorpius. _I am truly, royally, head-over-heels fucked._


End file.
